Few Key Notes (I didn't read the translated version, so I'm going off the original, so that link may have some things worded differently based on who translated it):

- MSQ in 4.0 will be a higher number, i.e there will be more MSQ than SQ, compared to Heavensward having A TON of side quests, so theres more "substance" based quests and less "filler" quests but still quite a lot of quests, just weighed differently.

- Accuracy is potentially being scrapped (not guaranteed)

- Parry is being scrapped as they have no other way to readjust this stat.

- They will keep the Normal and Savage format but realizes there's an extreme need for something AFTER savage if they continue to use Creator's balance.

- Creator Savage being cleared in 48 hours is on the mark they predicted and A11s being the wall is expected.

- Leveling your main job to 70 through MSQ like HW, you won't have to relearn your job like 50 > 60 as the battle changes aren't going to be that significant.

(The most important part)

The PS3/PS4 is not and have not held back ANYTHING about XIV/ARR, so the joke about "needing the PS5" is more regarding future proofing core design, so cutting support is indeed more of a financial reasoning since sony is focusing on the PS4 and SE focusing on PS4 version is simply a wiser option but has nothing to do with "limitations".

- 5.0 is the earliest another new race will be possible.

- They will indeed add a jump potion in 4.0, which will jump you to 60.

- Eureka, if it's well received with the relic weapon they'll extend it to armor sets where you can designate your stats on your choice of armor glamour, basically when you finish the gear you have a choice of how it looks as well as the finalized stats.

- You will have to complete 3.5 to do 4.0 stuff.

Otherwise it's actually a VERY lengthy interview that I doubt will get fully translated (since a lot of the info is just explaining in detail some things like the PS3 explanation and some flavor text on the usual "hmmmmm" "i dont know" "maaaaaaaaaaybe" etc etc.)

I wish they'd name that something else. Every time I hear "jump potion" I picture a potion that makes you jump higher.

Quote:

The PS3/PS4 is not and have not held back ANYTHING about XIV/ARR, so the joke about "needing the PS5" is more regarding future proofing core design, so cutting support is indeed more of a financial reasoning since sony is focusing on the PS4 and SE focusing on PS4 version is simply a wiser option but has nothing to do with "limitations".

I remember at one point SE saying that the PS3 did impose limitations specifically on the UI. Like it could only display so many UI elements at one time.

Quote:

You will have to complete 3.5 to do 4.0 stuff.

That's unfortunate. This is in direct contradiction to what they said when HW launched about how they'd handle future expansions. It creates an even bigger barrier to entry for new players. Even right now people are reluctant to pick the game up because the trip through ARR content takes so long to do. The way FFXI handled expansion stories was really much better. Each one was just a standalone story that could be completed when you wanted to complete it, but it never gated you out of another expansion.

____________________________

svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

Yeah, in the more detailed explanation, the only thing the PS3 really limits is what they can do with the PS3 itself, but it has no bearing on what they can do with the game. They've already took things into consideration for UI updates and display priority so the PS3 does get the short end, but the fact FFXIV does not have xyz isn't because of it like people loved to say. So I think with the announcement of the PS3 support ending and everyone going insane on the forums saying "the game will now get better!" Yoshida wanted to clear things up in that regard.

For example PS3 doesn't get access to full W bar and expanded inventory view like the PC does, so if the PS3 really did impose limits on design, the PC version wouldn't have gotten it, let alone the PS4. So he said there's been a lot of "misunderstanding" since people always took the "PS2 limitations" to heart if they were around for the XI days.

The jump potion thing always sound weird to me because I've played 2 MMOs specifically that uses a "jump potion" that gave you extra moves and higher jump/speed...I think they want to avoid making it sound too "direct" lol.

Really just wish they'd make the open world more relevant and exciting. That's what drew me to MMOs in the first place. Seems like everything these days is just standing around in town and queuing up for things.

relic weapon is enough of a grind i wouldnt want relic "equipment" too. Also they wanna make content harder than Savage? Heck half of us cant even get groups to do Savage with, wed have no chance and doing even harder content. Also ps3/4 hasnt holding anything back? Oh so theyre saying the coulda implemented that while flying and swooping down on mounts fighting stuff in fates that they wants to do with PS3? Doubtful. PS4 is probably not limiting much but PS3 surely had to be.

Theyre just saying it isnt to future proof their soon to be excuse of why nothing DRASTICALLY different will be change or happening once PS3 support IS gone. If theyre getting rid of Parry (and possibly accuracy) i think its tim to add evasion or agility lol

Rediculous, the only reason we now have "zones" instead of the expansive open areas (and tunnels and what not) of 1.0 is mainly because of the playstation in the first place... As much as they like to deny this. They tuned down the graphics significantly too.

Cant agree with a jump potion either. It's not because i grinded all my jobs to 60 the hard way. I mean, not entirely atleast. It's that people wont appreciate their jobs if they can just start at endgame. This isnt WoW. Characters arent disposable things to re-create on a whim. You start out somewhere low and slowly build up your character. Makes you feel involved in the world and your class/jobs. The long road of story quests and what not isnt an excuse, since apparently you need to finish 3.5 regardless before you can progress on to 4.0. Which means having to do all the story dungeons regardless, may as well run them a few times and level a job to 60 through it. Even one leveling roulette a day would mean it would be done and over with in 30 days, if you focus and just spam a few dungeons it wont even take that long at all... A week at most.

The more i hear about this expansion, the less enthuisiastic i am about it.

Only things that might change my feelings towards this would be removing the armoury system entirely. Letting you wear a multitude of weapons regardless of job/class like XI. Or making the game/dungeons open-world again like 1.0. Or what about subjobs?

Only things that might change my feelings towards this would be removing the armoury system entirely. Letting you wear a multitude of weapons regardless of job/class like XI. Or making the game/dungeons open-world again like 1.0. Or what about subjobs?

That would require too much thought, planning and intelligence... you know that thing that Yoshi doesnt want people to use because that would make the game "too hard" to play?

That would require too much thought, planning and intelligence... you know that thing that Yoshi doesnt want people to use because that would make the game "too hard" to play?

Your trolling aside, that's the direction the game is moving in already. The armory system is a relic of 1.0 and it's absolutely holding the game back.

Honestly I'm waiting for an expansion where the combat classes simply go away and are replaced entirely by jobs, and now your job crystal determines what you are instead of your equipped weapon. Not Stormblood obviously, but I do think this is the direction we're moving in.

____________________________

svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

That would require too much thought, planning and intelligence... you know that thing that Yoshi doesnt want people to use because that would make the game "too hard" to play?

Your trolling aside, that's the direction the game is moving in already. The armory system is a relic of 1.0 and it's absolutely holding the game back.

Honestly I'm waiting for an expansion where the combat classes simply go away and are replaced entirely by jobs, and now your job crystal determines what you are instead of your equipped weapon. Not Stormblood obviously, but I do think this is the direction we're moving in.

Thats not trolling thats fact... Did Yoshi not say the lack of elemental weaknesses (something just about EVERY rpg has) is because that would be "too hard" and he wanted the game to be as accessible as possible? Im thinking too hard? Ummm Whats hard about Fire weak to Water? 3 year olds play Pokemon just fine and have no problem handling that.

That would require too much thought, planning and intelligence... you know that thing that Yoshi doesnt want people to use because that would make the game "too hard" to play?

Your trolling aside, that's the direction the game is moving in already. The armory system is a relic of 1.0 and it's absolutely holding the game back.

Honestly I'm waiting for an expansion where the combat classes simply go away and are replaced entirely by jobs, and now your job crystal determines what you are instead of your equipped weapon. Not Stormblood obviously, but I do think this is the direction we're moving in.

I actually agree with Duo - Yoshida has said quite a few times things would be "too complicated/complex/confusing" if they added a layer of depth to this game. He said the reason itemization was changed (aside easier balance) from 1.x is because it would be "too confusing to know what I should be using", which is also a reason they're contemplating getting rid of more stats (it'll very likely fall into natural stats like accuracy being a tertiary effect of (insert main stat.)

I don't think the armory system is holding the game back because they can do A LOT with it. A LOT. It takes a simple look at the item structure of the current game, while most normal players can't/won't do that (since well shouldn't lol) it shows they can do so much.

Wonderous Tails actually prove that there's the ability to add a guaranteed 5 slots for materia to everything, which means they could easily retool the way materia worked for an expansion (you're supposed to do bigger/better things for an expansion) and use that as a form of horizontal growth for the people who want to progress in that fashion.

Remember - yoshida is the same dude who said the only thing holding them back from WANTING to go a different itemization route is the imaginary problem of players "requiring x gear or you can't do this content" when people already push away players who haven't cleared x content within the first 2-5 hours of an update, so absolutely nothing would change.

Funnily enough, XIV 1.0 the armory system only mattered in what your disciple was - you built your class around the skills you mixed and matched and the additional skills you chose to buy to further specialize - for example a Conjurer was initially a BLM, slap on some Absorb spells and you had a pseudo Dark Knight. This is why I still find XIV 1.x superior to 2.x simply because the sky was the limit with 1.x, they just had no chance to finish it. 2.x we already reached the limit, because Yoshida doesn't want to go out of the comfort zone, which is fine but I don't think established players will fall for another 3.0...at least none of the players tossing their money at the game now saying there's SO MUCH content to do because they choose not to do the content until it's obsolete.

Also:

Quote:

Did Yoshi not say the lack of elemental weaknesses (something just about EVERY rpg has) is because that would be "too hard" and he wanted the game to be as accessible as possible?

More specifically - he stated people wouldn't allow x job because they don't have the tool kit to target the monster weakness. Which falls into the problem of creating a rotation for BLM where Fire is your DPS spells, Thunder is your DoT and Ice is restorative. He mentioned they could easily create elemental weapons and such to deal with it or give us a use for elemental materia beyond outdated relics, but then it would be, again, "I don't have that weapon guys!"

So..them "pruning" for 4.0 is a sign sadly the game is only going to get easier and more homogonized rather than more complex. It doesn't have to be complex for the sake of it, but even the ********* F2P has more gameplay depth than this game does and that shouldn't be the case, at all, SE has far too many talented devs (that they didnt fire in the past 4 years) that they could be doing so much more.

So..them "pruning" for 4.0 is a sign sadly the game is only going to get easier and more homogonized rather than more complex.

Actually during the last live letter it was specifically stated that the skill cap for the various jobs would remain the same. They're pruning out abilities that aren't used or just don't really do things. And they really need to do that if they're going to continue adding abilities to jobs like they have been. Bar space is already kinda strained.

And honestly the game isn't that complex right now. I do more thinking in 60 seconds of playing my WoW character than I do in nearly 60 minutes of my XIV character. Now those two games have a lot of differences, I'm not trying to oversimplify here, but job complexity is not really something XIV focuses on even right now.

I'd like to see accuracy go away. I'd like to see parry not suck. Accuracy as a stat is just a matter of gear luck and reading a reddit thread for accuracy caps. There's no gameplay there. As for parry, just make it do things. Right now it's barely a damage mitigation stat. Give the various tanks some traits that let parry do other things and make it more of a tanking stat.. more parry = better tanking whereas right now more parry = less dps and pretty much nothing else.

____________________________

svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

I am not keen about the "Jump Potion". It has nothing to do with leveling pace (people are already leveling quite fast); going through the 2.0/3.0 content with reasonable pace is a complete package of the game (doesn't going through this still only takes 2-4 weeks? it is not long for a MMO commitment). If you give the chance the people to skim content and skip details by too much overpowering, they will and many that do so will get "bored" quickly because the skimming will make them fail to appreciate the story, lore and world of the FFXIV. Sometimes devs do have to enforce their vision onto the customers (as Jobs said "Show customer what you have made so they know that is what they really want"), and not to hand out excessive short-term instant gratification.

____________________________

Amanada (Cerberus-Retired) (aka MaiNoKen/Steven) -- Thank you for the fun times in Vana'diel

Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek. - George Sand

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Rediculous, the only reason we now have "zones" instead of the expansive open areas (and tunnels and what not) of 1.0 is mainly because of the playstation in the first place... As much as they like to deny this. They tuned down the graphics significantly too.

Cant agree with a jump potion either. It's not because i grinded all my jobs to 60 the hard way. I mean, not entirely atleast. It's that people wont appreciate their jobs if they can just start at endgame. This isnt WoW. Characters arent disposable things to re-create on a whim. You start out somewhere low and slowly build up your character. Makes you feel involved in the world and your class/jobs. The long road of story quests and what not isnt an excuse, since apparently you need to finish 3.5 regardless before you can progress on to 4.0. Which means having to do all the story dungeons regardless, may as well run them a few times and level a job to 60 through it. Even one leveling roulette a day would mean it would be done and over with in 30 days, if you focus and just spam a few dungeons it wont even take that long at all... A week at most.

The more i hear about this expansion, the less enthuisiastic i am about it.

Only things that might change my feelings towards this would be removing the armoury system entirely. Letting you wear a multitude of weapons regardless of job/class like XI. Or making the game/dungeons open-world again like 1.0. Or what about subjobs?

If there is one thing about going through the old dungeons. I have met new players who want to do their main quest dungeon uncapped. To be fair, those are probably minority, but still it makes you wonder - why are those players even playing to begin with? You play the game to interact with the game (things still die very quickly that way and many pre-50 dungeons are very easy if you do with level cap); it doesn't feel like playing a game when you let some level capped folk instant smash everything, and all you do is to follow around and do nothing. I will argue smashing is a lot more fun than following.

Edited, Dec 5th 2016 8:59am by scchan

Edited, Dec 5th 2016 9:03am by scchan

____________________________

Amanada (Cerberus-Retired) (aka MaiNoKen/Steven) -- Thank you for the fun times in Vana'diel

Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek. - George Sand

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If there is one thing about going through the old dungeons. I have met new players who want to do their main quest dungeon uncapped. To be fair, those are probably minority, but still it makes you wonder - why are those players even playing to begin with? You play the game to interact with the game (things still die very quickly that way and many pre-50 dungeons are very easy if you do with level cap); it doesn't feel like playing a game when you let some level capped folk instant smash everything, and all you do is to follow around and do nothing. I will argue smashing is a lot more fun than following.

You sure they aren't asking for a re-tuned version for new level cap, say a Lv60 Sastasha?

Or do they really want to stomp around in Lv15 Sastasha with Lv60 characters?

I could understand the former (going from 10+ abilities down to 2-3 is really boring), but the latter is kinda "eeeeh" as you already said.

If there is one thing about going through the old dungeons. I have met new players who want to do their main quest dungeon uncapped. To be fair, those are probably minority, but still it makes you wonder - why are those players even playing to begin with? You play the game to interact with the game (things still die very quickly that way and many pre-50 dungeons are very easy if you do with level cap); it doesn't feel like playing a game when you let some level capped folk instant smash everything, and all you do is to follow around and do nothing. I will argue smashing is a lot more fun than following.

You sure they aren't asking for a re-tuned version for new level cap, say a Lv60 Sastasha?

Or do they really want to stomp around in Lv15 Sastasha with Lv60 characters?

I could understand the former (going from 10+ abilities down to 2-3 is really boring), but the latter is kinda "eeeeh" as you already said.

Edited, Dec 5th 2016 11:57am by Lyrailis

It is latter one because I got dragged into such party before >_>

____________________________

Amanada (Cerberus-Retired) (aka MaiNoKen/Steven) -- Thank you for the fun times in Vana'diel

Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek. - George Sand

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I can't say I entirely blame the people who want to roflstomp old dungeons.

You take a Lv60 character, he's got all kinds of different toys to use. Stick him in a Lv15 level sync party and now he's got 1-2 abilities to use. I know early-level healers and tanks are very boring. Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure the whole dungeon and.... that's it. Maybe, if a real real real bad situation happens, you MIGHT need a Medica. Maybe. Or Esuna, rarely.

As well, some people are simply more interested in getting the story (out of the way) than challenge. Fundamentally, I wouldn't say it much different than just overleveling in a traditional RPG. The option should exist, and forced capping has been a habitually controversial thing in MMOs for various reasons.

In the end, the best way to experience things "as intended" is to be there at its launch. Sucks if you miss it, sure, but that's just one of those potential side effects of persistent multiplayer games.

I always thought being forced level down is a good practice of fundamentals. Kind of like even Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky still need basic physical training and practices. It keeps you honest. My experience is that some players get overconfident; tanks overpull, and black mages forgetting the sleep spell actually exists for emergencies.

Anyway, I guess it is a preference. I always prefer some risk of wiping to keep you honest, and you should never get too coc*y. It makes life more interesting :3.

____________________________

Amanada (Cerberus-Retired) (aka MaiNoKen/Steven) -- Thank you for the fun times in Vana'diel

Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek. - George Sand

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I always thought being forced level down is a good practice of fundamentals. Kind of like even Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky still need basic physical training and practices. It keeps you honest. My experience is that some players get overconfident; tanks overpull, and black mages forgetting the sleep spell actually exists for emergencies.

Funny you should mention that, I just did it the other day.

Snowcloak... tank overpulled, died, healer died.. DRG started to run away... I just cast sleep and waited for the tank and healer to come back.

I wish sleep worked more consistently though. There's a LOT of trash it just doesn't work on for no discernible reason.

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svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

I always thought being forced level down is a good practice of fundamentals. Kind of like even Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky still need basic physical training and practices. It keeps you honest. My experience is that some players get overconfident; tanks overpull, and black mages forgetting the sleep spell actually exists for emergencies.

Funny you should mention that, I just did it the other day.

Snowcloak... tank overpulled, died, healer died.. DRG started to run away... I just cast sleep and waited for the tank and healer to come back.

I wish sleep worked more consistently though. There's a LOT of trash it just doesn't work on for no discernible reason.

Depending how many enemies are there, the sleep spell AOE range may not be wide enough or there are just too many to be killed fast enough as sleep resistance build even after the 2nd try. Also specific for Snowcloak (near the very end) and normal/hard dragon fort, those two-legged dragons can never be slept.

Personally when I am tanking, I limit myself to at maximum to two group (6 enemies should be max), and I always check the gear of party member to get a rough idea how much risk can be taken. I know some tanks (coc*y ones) don't do it that way. The more one assume your party mates skill or connection speed (especially over duty finder), your chance of disappointment increases. A single wipe nearly always guarantees a slower run.

Edited, Dec 7th 2016 11:59am by scchan

Edited, Dec 7th 2016 12:07pm by scchan

____________________________

Amanada (Cerberus-Retired) (aka MaiNoKen/Steven) -- Thank you for the fun times in Vana'diel

Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek. - George Sand

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I don't really see taking abilities/power they've earned away from players as keeping them honest. Running with Cal's example, a Sleep spells is a sleep spell regardless of what level you're going to use it at. The conditions of why you would want to use it do not change even if players eventually feel strong enough to not bother with it. Though, I am of the mind over-pulling tends to be a problem in any dungeon spammer MMO, usually because trash is deliberately kept worth minimizing time spent on. And if it can be skipped, well, we saw what Amdapor did back in the day here.

That said, some games at least have the decency where, even if they do have level caps, abilities just get scaled down instead of eliminated entirely. Largely being a RDM main in XI, I would've killed for something like that since the job pre-40 is pretty miserable to play, and honestly didn't feel "good" until 75 with the gear that followed. And not so surprisingly, the way one could play RDM at the earlier levels differed from what people expected of it at cap. So, this implied honesty can also lead to some mixed signals. In fact, caps are exactly why I played another job to get through CoP.

That said, some games at least have the decency where, even if they do have level caps, abilities just get scaled down instead of eliminated entirely.

WoW's been experimenting with that in their Timewalking dungeons where players are queued into dungeons from previous expansions. The way it's handled there is that players lose no abilities but their numbers are scaled down (or up) to the level cap of the expansion the dungeon belongs to. This has actually led to some pretty amusing situations where people who were used to overgearing the dungeon no longer do (because it's impossible to overgear these) and bite off more than they can chew as a result.

____________________________

svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

That said, some games at least have the decency where, even if they do have level caps, abilities just get scaled down instead of eliminated entirely. Largely being a RDM main in XI, I would've killed for something like that since the job pre-40 is pretty miserable to play, and honestly didn't feel "good" until 75 with the gear that followed. And not so surprisingly, the way one could play RDM at the earlier levels differed from what people expected of it at cap. So, this implied honesty can also lead to some mixed signals. In fact, caps are exactly why I played another job to get through CoP.

IMO, I couldn't stand RDM until they added Composure, lol.

Self-buffs were way too expensive for all the meager duration they lasted (2-3 minutes). I felt I was doing nothing but constantly re-casting buffs. Never could understand why they felt said buffs that everybody is going to insist upon having up fulltime should cost so much, take so long to cast, and last so little.

Some people will inevitably call that one of XI's charms. Meanwhile, playing other games I'd see buffs being maintained passively, increasing the player's freedom for other activities. Or debuffs being more productive/interactive without overly complicated resist systems. Certainly there are things I liked that I'd hoped the devs would've brought to XI back in the day, but in the end, you were either a wannabe WHM or relegated to soloing ****.

Still gotta laugh when ideas that popped up in the RDM community wound up being tools in later jobs. Still say Tanaka held a grudge with the HNM soloing. :P

Some people will inevitably call that one of XI's charms. Meanwhile, playing other games I'd see buffs being maintained passively, increasing the player's freedom for other activities. Or debuffs being more productive/interactive without overly complicated resist systems.

Some people also think being whipped or otherwise tortured is fun, doesn't mean it's true for the vast majority of people.

And yes, when I see games like XIV doing important buffs almost passively (casting Protect + Shell once per 30 minutes and regaining the MP back almost instantly...), I look back at XI and ask myself "....why are they still doing it that way?"

XI made huge QoL changes... surely they could do a few things like modify Protect and Shell? Would that really break the game, if they cut the MP cost and casting time of those and some other buffs that people want? Or extend Haste's natural duration to, say, 10 minutes?

It would certainly remove a LOT of annoyance without any heavy back-end coding required. Yeah, I get the people running XI are starved on resources... but surely tweaking a few values to remove some annoyances shouldn't be that difficult to do?

Not like 10min Haste is going to break the game, at any rate.

And then you got job abilities which is another pet peeve of mine. They give you this job ability (and of course, one of the few Merit/Job options is to buff said ability by a tiny margin) that has a 5 minute recast that only gives you 10-20 seconds of joy. Really?

I open up my Merit Points and it's "Buff this JA, buff that JA" and I'm like "I rarely ever use those, though. They're up <5% of my total time in combat...."

Such things are why I wish the private server scenes took a bit more liberty. I mean, I know there are some hurdles to it here and there, but it's either been "Recreate the CoP days!" or just nothing coded after a point. Makes me wish I stuck more to coding post-high school even though none of what I learned then really applies to present day outside of logic.

That has more to do with a lot of people who run them don't know jack all about coding, whereas the ones who do (for example Legion) incorporates and even modifies the base XI experience to take more modern QoL updates and adding them ontop of the "oldschool experience."

So most people just download the "source" code - change some things here and there that requires no coding knowledge - slap into a database - release the server. So you'll see a lot of CoP Only/Zilart days only servers as that's mainly what comes "100%" complete with little effort on your part.

Thing about JP though, it seems like a little margin, but it's actually quite significant when you realize ilvl play is quite different. So it adds up fairly quickly, for example taking a non-jp Geomancer and a JP Geomancer you see insane differences.

I'm not commenting about the rationale behind this idea (though it doesn't solve the "item level progression issue"), I'll just point out that 2500 yen for a virtual item - one shot use - is absolutely ridicolous.

I'm not commenting about the rationale behind this idea (though it doesn't solve the "item level progression issue"), I'll just point out that 2500 yen for a virtual item - one shot use - is absolutely ridicolous.

Yeah it's expensive, though I think that might be kind of the point. The idea is to catch people up not trivialize all leveling forever. With a slightly prohibitive cost attached, people will be less inclined to spam these and just never level an off-job again.

Btw Blizzard charges $60 for a very similar service.

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svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

It is, but as shown, people would buy out the mog station if it had limited supply, so there's plenty willing to pay. When I load Balmung after cash shop updates I counted no less than 76 people after a day that had the china/korea stuff purchased. That's just 1 day and 1 server.

The ability to bypass the "hard stuff" as people put on official forums? SE made bank.

It is, but as shown, people would buy out the mog station if it had limited supply, so there's plenty willing to pay. When I load Balmung after cash shop updates I counted no less than 76 people after a day that had the china/korea stuff purchased. That's just 1 day and 1 server.

The ability to bypass the "hard stuff" as people put on official forums? SE made bank.

I'd be curious how much throughput those items get as a percentage of a region's actual players.

Yeah there are always going to be people that simply can't restrain themselves when they see a cash shop. As long as it's not a pay to win situation though, I don't really care. It's their money.

____________________________

svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.